James Weldon Johnson, ed. (1871–1938). The Book of American Negro Poetry. 1922.
Index to First Lines
- A great swart cheek and the gleam of tears
- Ah, how poets sing and die!
- Ah’m sick, doctor-man, Ah’m sick!
- And God stepped out on space
- Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes
- As I lie in bed
- Black brother, think you life so sweet
- Brother, come!
- Christ washed the feet of Judas!
- Clean de ba’n an’ sweep de flo’
- Come, children, hear the joyful sound
- Come home with me a little space
- Cum, listen w’ile yore Unkel sings
- Dar’s a lazy, sortah hazy
- Del Cascar, Del Cascar
- Des a little cabin
- De winter days are drawin’ nigh
- Dey is times in life when Nature
- Dey was hard times jes fo’ Christmas round our neighborhood one year
- Deze eatin’ folks may tell me ub de gloriz ub spring lam’
- Eternities before the first-born day
- Ever and ever anon
- Flushed with the hope of high desire
- For the sun that shone at the dawn of spring
- From a vision red with war I awoke and saw the Prince of Peace
- From this low-lying valley; Oh, how sweet
- Full many lift and sing
- Garden of Shushan!
- Gay little Girl-of-the-Diving-Tank
- Ghastly, ghoulish, grinning skull
- Gone are the sensuous stars, and manifold
- Heart free, hand free
- He came, a youth, singing in the dawn
- Hello dar, Miss Melerlee!
- He’s struttin’ sho ernuff
- His spirit in smoke ascended to high heaven
- I am glad daylong for the gift of song
- I am so tired and weary
- I am tired of work
- If Ah evah git to glory, an’ Ah hope to mek it thoo
- If this is peace, this dead and leaden thing
- If we must die—let it not be like hogs
- I had no thought of violets of late
- I hear the halting footsteps of a lass
- I heeard da ole folks talkin’ in our house da other night
- I hope when I am dead that I shall lie
- I kissed a kiss in youth
- I’m folding up my little dreams
- I’m out to find the new, the modern school
- I must not gaze at them although
- I think I see her sitting bowed and black
- It was not fate which overtook me
- I want to die while you love me
- Jes’ beyan a clump o’ pines
- Keep me ’neath Thy mighty wing
- Lay me down beneaf de willers in de grass
- Little brown baby wif spa’klin’ eyes
- Lord, who am I to teach the way
- Maker-of-Sevens in the scheme of things
- Merry voices chatterin’
- O black and unknown bards of long ago
- O brothers mine, take care! Take care!
- O brothers mine, to-day we stand
- O chillen, run, de Cunjah man
- O, de birds ar’ sweetly singin’
- O, de light-bugs glimmer down de lane
- O’er all my song the image of a face
- Oh, for the veils of my far away youth
- Oh little Christ, why do you sigh
- Once I was good like the Virgin Mary and the Minister’s wife
- One does such work as one will not
- On summer afternoons I sit
- On the dusty earth-drum
- O, rich young lord, thou ridest by
- O Silent God, Thou whose voice afar in mist and mystery hath left our ears an-hungered in these fearful days
- O Southland! O Southland!
- Out in the Night thou art the sun
- Out in the sky the great dark clouds are massing
- O whisper, O my soul!—the afternoon
- Pray why are you so bare, so bare
- Sandy Star and Willie Gee
- Seems lak to me de stars don’t shine so bright
- Seen my lady home las’ night
- See! There he stands; not brave, but with an air
- Sewanee Hills of dear delight
- She danced, near nude, to tom-tom beat
- So many cares to vex the day
- Some day, when trees have shed their leaves
- So much have I forgotten in ten years
- So oft our hearts, belovèd lute
- Staccato! Staccato!
- Summah night an’ sighin’ breeze
- The band of Gideon roam the sky
- The Dawn’s awake!
- The dew is on the grasses, dear
- The garden is very quiet to-night
- The heart of a woman goes forth with the dawn
- There are no hollows any more
- There is music in me, the music of a peasant people
- These truly are the Brave
- Think you I am not fiend and savage too?
- This is the debt I pay
- To be a Negro in a day like this
- To dreamy languors and the violet mist
- Too green the springing April grass
- Turn me to my yellow leaves
- Ur ol’ Hyar lib in ur house on de hill
- Walk right in Brother Wilson—how you feelin’ to-day?
- We are children of the sun
- We trekked into a far country
- We’ve kept the faith. Our souls’ high dreams
- What dost thou here, thou shining, sinless thing
- When ol’ Sis’ Judy pray
- Wherefore this busy labor without rest?
- Why do men smile when I speak
- Would I might mend the fabric of my youth
- Your voice is the color of a robin’s breast